If this were unusual in high-end gaming I might agree with you. However, it's not at all unusual. Lots of games have alternate ways involving cash that allow you to tailor your experience to whatever you want. Even most other MMO's have a 'patron' or equivalent account level where you pay monthly but that doesn't necessarily give you access to everything in the store. The answer as always is to mind your own business and not worry so much about what others are doing.

The bold part I quoted in no way answers the question of the post you quoted: if players are willing to pay to skip content, it means something is wrong with the content. 'Other MMOs do it' doesn't change the fact that something is wrong.

'Players spend most of their time at level 90' doesn't mean Blizzard should ignore leveling content (bgs, dungeons etc.) that have glaring issues for the people who use them. If Blizzard ignores the content I use because other people are paying to skip it, isn't that my business?

Not to everyone. And in a lot of ways leveling is the exact same thing as max level. Questing, dungeons, PvP is all part of leveling just as it is max level. One thing i attribute making leveling so boring is the heirlooms. In a game revolving around upgrading gear, when you make that gear for every slot stagnant for 85 levels, it does get awfully boring, and that's just to get the XP boost. The XP boost needs to be implemented in another way so leveling is more than just questing in the exact same gear from level 1.

There are also so many different methods of leveling i don't really get the "it's unbearably boring" complaint. It used to be just quests, considering dungeons were hard to put together at low levels, and battlegrounds gave no XP. But thats not the case anymore. That means you can level while questing, doing dungeons, and battleground, which I myself do variations of constantly while leveling (throwing in as much world PvP as possible is always fun as well). Also if you notice all of those things are what max level is comprised of anyway. So why would you pay a exorbitant amount of money just to rush to doing the same exact thing.

I don't like heirlooms and I enjoyed leveling the first... 6-7 times maybe? Until I ran out of new quests to do anyway. Some new players (if there is still anyone in the world who hasn't played WoW before) may feel the same, so they can choose to start a level 1 instead of playing their 90.

But I think most players, new or otherwise, just want to get to 90 ASAP.

Just because other MMOs or games are doing it is a piss poor reason. Paying to unlock weapons or equipment in Battlefield 4 is a prime example of a company that has abandoned the integrity of their game.

And if the paid boost to 90 option was in any way comparable, you might have a point. But it isnt, so you dont. Untill blizzard actually sells something that gives you a distinct advantage only available in the store, there will have been no "abandonment of integrety".

Blizzard is a large company, they have plenty of talented developers and designers. They can come up with a better solution then "pay $60 to skip".

At what cost though? Look at what happened with Cataclysm and how it is regarded as the the worst expansion for WoW. That was because they spent time redoing the 1-60 content. What it says about your game though is that someone enjoys it enough that they are willing to pay that much for an end-game (or near end-game come WoD) character. And that they want that character to be able to start end game content right away instead of being leveled up.

This isn't anything new as Blizzard has seen this desire for years with SoR and RaF boosts being used for players own accounts rather then others.

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Originally Posted by ringpriest

Blizzard has cultivated that attitude, I suspect it's their preferred player-mindset going forward. Huge chunks of the gaming community have fallen prey to it - just look at the recent 're-release' of Dungeon Keeper. Corporate gaming isn't about what grognards like myself consider good game design, it's about building the bestest shiniest Skinner-box possible so that you can extract the maximum possible profit from the suckers <cough> 'gamers'.

I like how you routinely insult people yet you are here discussing the game. Either you are one of those suckers, as you've quit yet still have a need to discuss the game. Or you still pay and play despite your distaste for WoW being a corporate game. Which leads one to believe that you words don't mesh with your actualy beliefs on WoW.

There is a thing with being an old soldier, you are set in your ways unable to adapt to a changing industry. WoW isn't cashing out anymore then they did with SoR and RaF because those both offered boosts for money. They have cultivated it with Blizzcon, Merchandise, TCG, CE's, and everything else. Its because Blizzard wants to make money. I don't know why that seems to be a suspicion for you still.

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Originally Posted by Enan1981

Why even invest in a game when you want what most of MMO gaming is usually spent on (leveling) make it look like a burden to you? They have invested a lot into making leveling LESS tedious as it is, and yet I hear complaining that its too much work, dont have time to play.

Because of that line. Because most of the time is spent on leveling, when most of the content, action, and new stuff is all at end game. However I would suspect even for the average player that they spend more time at level cap then they do leveling. In WoD they will spend more time 91-100 (and level cap) then they will leveling 1-90 over the course of the expansion.

Its an option that has existed for years but has always been behind an account merging hurdle. This is no different then it has been in past incarnations, just more convenient. It is only around because it SoR was popular. And most players don't get retained through leveling, they get retained through the new expansions content.

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Originally Posted by silvercentric

No, that's actually not an answer at all. WoW is not a singleplayer game, it's a MMO, as in MASSIVELY MULTI-PLAYER Online game. It's because of cancerous players like yourself that Blizzard is trending down this road.

But it doesn't effect you, because you don't play with all 7 million subscribers. You play with your own guild/friends more often then not. In which case I highly doubt you'd care if one of those boosted a character or not. Does a person buying a mount impact you? Do you mind your own business then?

"Man is his own star. His acts are his angels, good or ill, While his fatal shadows walk silently beside him."-Rhyme of the Primeval Paradine AFC 54
You know a community is bad when moderators lock a thread because "...this isnt the place to talk about it either seeing as it will get trolled..."

The game is no longer "fair game". It is no longer dictated by what you are willing to earn for yourself. While some will try to defend this nonsense as "just saving you time", I would point that that *EVERYTHING* in an MMO is about time. That's what MMO's -- hell, it's what *ALL* video-games are -- a time-sink. Selling level 90's is no different than selling level 100's, which is no different than selling Dungeon gear, which is no different than selling Raid gear, because all it *IS* is about saving time. Time spent learning strats, time spent waiting for drops.

And before some idiot tries the classic rebuttal "What someone else does or doesn't pay for doesn't affect you"; of course it does. This is an MMO. Neither you nor I is isolated from one another, so yes, one person choosing to buy an instant 90 does affect me, just as it affects everyone. It's going to affect PvP. It's going to affect raiding. It's going to affect the market. And whether you like it or not, selling a pre-leveled character belittles everyone's prior investment in their characters.

My oldest character is a level 86 Paladin; I started him at launch, and played him up through the end of Burning Crusade. He saw Ragnaros and Nefarion die while they were current content, he was present during the opening of the gates of Ahn'Qiraj, and he even fell before a pre-nerf M'uru several times. And for $60, you can buy a *better* character than him. For $60, you can hit level 90 before I even have time to hit 87 -- before I could even *LOG INTO THE GAME*. The Orc Warrior I've been leveling off-and-on for the past couple of months? You can surpass him, too. Clearly, a wasted effort on my part.

I used an analogy in another post, and while it seemed to have gone over some players' heads, I'm going to use it again here. In a simple game of basketball, you have Team A and Team B. If Team A wins, we don't berate them because they've spent more time practicing; we praise them for it. It's a game; the victor is he who plays best. Now, what if Team B bribes the ref and starts out 20 points ahead? By most peoples' standards, that would be called "cheating". Or if you're playing in a ranked tournament, bribing officials to skip the elimination rounds and skip straight to the final play-off.

Leveling takes longer than it need to; that much is common knowledge by now. Mists of Pandaria, specifically, has been more arduous than any other expansion to date. Clearly, work needs to be done to make the leveling-process more enjoyable, to both new players and current ones. We're already paying Blizzard to fix that, by way of a mandatory subscription-fee. Instead, they have elected not only to *avoid* fixing the problem, but then have the audacity to *charge* us to fix the problem, which they themselves are held accountable for!

Quite frankly, I feel betrayed. Not only as a consumer, but as a *fan*. I've been playing World of Warcraft for over nine years now, and it has become part of my lifestyle. Gaming is my passion, and World of Warcraft has, in large part, been my go-to game. I couldn't even guess how many hours I've spent playing the game. Selling level 90's is an insult to everything I've worked towards in this game. The issue has nothing to do with the cost; hell, I've bought literally every Collector's Edition Blizzard has put out since Warcraft III, and I've already paid off the Reaper of Souls CE. The issue is that, when players can purchase a literal advantage over other players, it sacrifices the integrity of the entire game. Doing so has irreversibly tarnished the once-sacred Blizzard name.

So there, I've said what I feel needed to be said. Agree or disagree, I suppose it doesn't matter anymore; now that paid 90's are already in the game, Blizzard couldn't undo the damage even if they wanted to. I've had a lot of good memories with WoW. Shame that it must end on such a sour note.

Not sure if this has been mentioned, but LoTRO recently offered 'Gift of the Valar' which boosts you to level 50 (out of 95) and costs about the same (maybe a little less? Difficult to be precise as Turbine Points are bought on a sliding scale- the more you buy the more you get) in turbine points as WoWs level 90 boost. In that context the Blizzard option seems pretty good value to me- a high enough price to stop most people from instantly boosting every class, but low enough to make it feasible to boost those one or two classes that you just can't be bothered levelling.

While i agree that Blizz should do something about the leveling, it doesn't change the fact that he uses retarded examples and gives stupid reasons. If i powerlevel a character right now to 90, i'm already better than his paladin.

WoW isn't about levels. Its about memories. The power leveled character never seen muru, never heard of AQ, saw C'thun and faced of Ragnaros. These memories belong to you and only to you.

If he thinks a lvl 90 character is better than another, then he is flat out stupid. No character is better than any other, you cannot compare memories, achievments and 7 years old screenshots.

I'm playing this shaman since 9 years, yet i'm not whining, if someone gets better PvE gear, PvP gear or levels faster than me. Its not a competition in any of these cases. In PvP everyone is equally geared (by the end), in PvE its 25 vs 25, that race count, that arena count. Not who is a fresh bought char or who is a 9 year one

WoW has been mostly an anti-gain per time MMO since launch compared to it's biggest competitor at the time Everquest. WoW did a lot of things to fix issues that would make an MMO not fun if you weren't in the one only top guild on a server, however, it took away a lot of what a lot of people worked for in Everquest which was rare powerful items. Outside of mounts and pets and things that take a long time to camp, everyone can get everything in this game at some point or another. And the things they get that take a lot of time do not affect their power level.

The few items that actually affect power level like legendarys will not be buyable and they're the main exception. It takes someone at the start of a 5 level xpac like 20 hours non stop play to reach 90 totally alone (maybe less). The average working person it takes a few days to a week. It is ridiculous to argue that leveling is something difficult in this game and it's up to you whether you want to level for fun or power level the fastest way possible. There may be an argument for tradeskills, but like I said, I see this game as a game where everyone can put in a reasonable amount of time and get the same things (max tradeskills are not 'that' hard to get). The race to 90 from 85 is not something that is anywhere difficult in this game.

In Everquest, it took days to get sometimes one level. In Everquest you could camp a spawn (only one spawn per server) for a rare item that would make your character so much more powerful that it was a massive bonus and would continue into future xpacs. Those items would stay around and be worth something as a lot of things were tradeable. These types of things don't exist in WoW.

In WoW legendarys are the only thing that boosts your ability above and beyond the average raiding character and you don't buy those with dollars from the Blizzard store and then they are useless in a year or less. Everybody can hit max level in WoW with minimal effort it is the easiest thing in WoW to do it's next to 'not doing anything'. A lot of people raid and most of those can get 'regular mode' raiding gear and it's all the same and is useless in 6 months (usually).

A few days of leveling is not really an issue and I don't think I'd ever pay 60 dollars for a boosted level 90 (besides RAF has been around forever and you get mounts/pets from those... also you can boost many level 85's and soon to be 90's with it). I gave up on WoW ever being a game that would get me more power than the average person (for more than a few months) in Vanilla. Being this game will 'never' allow a character to become more powerful for extended periods of time than others from excess time in game, I was hoping that things like advanced tradeskills would be in WoW back then. Tradeskills are the same thing. Outside of a few rare patterns, everyone can do the same things as anyone else... If you want to beat the big raid bosses, do challenge modes, PVP, Brawler's guild stuff, you can't do it in level 90 greens. That's the part of the game that actually requires work.

So, IMO, this character boost doesn't bother me. I don't care if someone has 10 level 90 characters on every server and paid tens of thousands of dollars for it because it won't make any difference to me and my playing of this game. When people can buy a levitate cloak from Quillmane or a fungal tunic from the blizzard store, then I'll be upset (I never did get those =( .)

-Nish

Last edited by Nish77; 2014-03-11 at 12:07 PM.

I don't know everything about baseball. Most people don't know 'everything' about baseball. People fall into two two categories. Person A will, when they see I don't know something, try to explain it to me in detail so I understand it. Person B will use their knowledge to make me out to be stupid. Person B is no friend of mine.

While i agree that Blizz should do something about the leveling, it doesn't change the fact that he uses retarded examples and gives stupid reasons. If i powerlevel a character right now to 90, i'm already better than his paladin.

WoW isn't about levels. Its about memories. The power leveled character never seen muru, never heard of AQ, saw C'thun and faced of Ragnaros. These memories belong to you and only to you.

If he thinks a lvl 90 character is better than another, then he is flat out stupid. No character is better than any other, you cannot compare memories, achievments and 7 years old screenshots.

I'm playing this shaman since 9 years, yet i'm not whining, if someone gets better PvE gear, PvP gear or levels faster than me. Its not a competition in any of these cases. In PvP everyone is equally geared (by the end), in PvE its 25 vs 25, that race count, that arena count. Not who is a fresh bought char or who is a 9 year one

That's sort of the point, though; you could always have a better character, but only if you actually *played*. Now, you can literally just buy that advantage. That's why I used the basketball analogy; there's no fault in someone surpassing you based on them investing more, the problem is when they can do so through money. If Blizzard wanted to use that sort of game-design, then they should have done so from the very start; instead, they shove this blatant cash-grab into a game that players are already invested in, and it still doing *incredibly* well in terms of active subs (to me knowledge, no other MMO has even come close to the amount of subs they still have, which was 7.8 million in Feb).

Even strictly from a business perspective, it doesn't make sense in the long run; most MMO's that go this route jeopardize their entire subscription-base in pursuing a few "whales". But again, I'm personally offended as a fan of the game, the franchise, and even the company. This decision was not done in the spirit of good game-design.

Buying a lvl 90 boost is like paying for a hooker you could do the normal way and get a girlfriend and after a while you'll get some horizontal time but for ppl who have tried that way numerous times and just sick of the time commitment and all. They can go to a brothel and pay extra and jump straight to the action without the previous boring bits

Very poor analogy. It's more like buying a house that is already built and just needs furniture vs building the house myself.

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Originally Posted by coldrain

just because you can afford something doesn't mean it's not a ripoff

40 hours of playtime to level from 1-90 with no gear or gimmicks moving at a decent pace.
$60 to save me that 40 hour grind.
------------------------------------
Totally worth every Penny.

PLUS, I got:
- 483 gear
- 200 gold
- every riding skill except Master (310%) and Cloud Serpent
- 2 embersilk bags for my character (nothing in the bank)
- appeared on the Timeless Isle when logging in for the first time.

I bought the Master riding, power leveled my profs in 2 hours, and spent another 2 hours getting up to 496 ilvl.

So, for $60, and 4 hours worth of time, I got 40 hours worth of work done and almost 12k gold worth of gear and flying, plus physical gold.

That's why I used the basketball analogy; there's no fault in someone surpassing you based on them investing more, the problem is when they can do so through money.

But that is where your basketball analogy is flawed. Because teams reguarlly invest more money in their players, training, and everything else to insure that they get the best players. Professional sports teams don't just train people for a great team. They buy their way with contracts in the millions to get the top talent on their team.

I also fail to see why it is only a problem when a person can invest more money. The advantage they gain from investing more money is the same advantage gained by investing more time. Everything they get can be earned with out paying a cent extra. Investing time (or lack of investing time) drastically changes the value of your subscription. If someone takes 2 months to level from 1-90, and another person takes one week then they both paid a different amount for a level 90. ($30 versus $3.50). This also doesn't take into account Blizzards varying subscription prices based on investing more time (1, 3, and 6 month blocks).

This blatant cash grab as you call it has already been in the game for years, so why are you only complaining about it now? Why is it only an issue now? It is 100% optional so why is it impacting your investment if you don't want to use it? Do you have no self control? Not to mention Death Knights starting out at level 55, but I guess it has nothing to do with anything else then real world money.

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Originally Posted by hrugner

I wonder if a boosted character gets achievements for the 10 level increments he did not, in fact, achieve.

They do, and they did earn those achievements since their level has increased. RaF and SoR has earned them for years, just as death knights earn those achievements.

Last edited by rhorle; 2014-03-11 at 01:58 PM.

"Man is his own star. His acts are his angels, good or ill, While his fatal shadows walk silently beside him."-Rhyme of the Primeval Paradine AFC 54
You know a community is bad when moderators lock a thread because "...this isnt the place to talk about it either seeing as it will get trolled..."

None of that what he said even matters to the purpose of what a 90 boost is used for. Holy Shit. The $10+ gets people riled up, and now this crap. Almost a lot of yall will still be buying WoD, not sure why it ever mattered.

The game is no longer "fair game". It is no longer dictated by what you are willing to earn for yourself. While some will try to defend this nonsense as "just saving you time", I would point that that *EVERYTHING* in an MMO is about time. That's what MMO's -- hell, it's what *ALL* video-games are -- a time-sink. Selling level 90's is no different than selling level 100's, which is no different than selling Dungeon gear, which is no different than selling Raid gear, because all it *IS* is about saving time. Time spent learning strats, time spent waiting for drops.

I agree with you. To paraphrase a famous quote, we've already established what WoW is, now we're just arguing about the price.

"In today’s America, conservatives who actually want to conserve are as rare as liberals who actually want to liberate. The once-significant language of an earlier era has had the meaning sucked right out of it, the better to serve as camouflage for a kleptocratic feeding frenzy in which both establishment parties participate with equal abandon" (Taking a break from the criminal, incompetentliars at the NSA, to bring you the above political observation, from The Archdruid Report.)

Why so much hate for boosting to 90?

It's not P2W. It's P2 catch up. Over time leveling has gotten longer and longer. It used to be 1-60, then 1-70, then 1-80, then 1-90 and soon 1-100. Now that it's gotten so high, it can take a long time for most people to catch up and be able to play with their friends. It's become a bigger and bigger time investment. For a new player or someone making an alt, it looks like a huge mountain in front of them and many will say screw it and not bother. Especially considering that there is no fun game play involved in lower levels, even with CRZ, you're usually out on your own running quests and waiting for queues; most people don't find that very fun or engaging. It's an MMO, they're here to play with other people, usually their friends. It's especially difficult for a new player to see that mountain and feel like climbing it just so that they can get into current tier content and play with their friends in a reasonable amount of time. Granted, as an alt, most of us have heirlooms, know how to leverage RAF and Blizz has increased XP gained and lowered XP required in places but it's still a significant time investment for most people to get from 1-90 and THEN start preparing to play in current content, even more so for a new player. A new player doesn't have the benefit of knowing the fun that is had at max level so they don't have the carrot in front of them to entice them to bother with the investment.

Paying to get to 90 doesn't impact anything meaningful. You still need to get current level gear (you're not doing anything useful in the greens you auto-get) in order to not get steam rolled in PVP and do meaningful damage in PVE.

At best you could argue that it makes running LFR and random BGs painful while these people get geared up and used to their new class but that's about it. You might call them baddies but there have been baddies well before boosting came into the picture. Some people get the hang of it, others do not, regardless of the leveling mechanism and experience.

You do NOT get free epics nor can you buy epics by boosting to 90 as other posts suggest nor has there even been a rumor of that happening. They don't even point to a real problem or impact on the game, just that they don't like it and therefore the game is now unplayable. Its a psychological problem masquerading as a game play problem.

I for one, leveled 4 90's and 3 85's the normal leveling route but I wanted to finally try my hand at playing a warrior but I did not feel like investing the 1-90 leveling time to do it at this point so boosting to 90 by pre-purchase of WoD for my warrior made sense, got me into current content and now I'm working on gearing him up and getting decent with the ins and outs of playing one. Once I've gotten the hang of it and have appropriate gear from LFR, Celestials, Ordos, TI, and crafting, I'll be GTG to take part in my guild's alt run in SoO. No harm, no foul and I don't see how this negatively impacts you and your ability to play and enjoy the game.

What benefit do the boosted 90's get that you don't? They saved time getting there. That's it. The sky is not falling.

Am I wrong? Do the boosted 90 characters somehow take away from your ability to play or enjoy the game the way you always have? Do they get some unfair advantage over you in PVP or PVE? Or are you just mad that you leveled the slow way and they didn't?

Mod-note: Merged two threads together as they are basicly the same topic. Please do avoid making multiple threads of the same topic to help keep the forum a little more clean. This current post is the front/First starting post from this user's thread "Why so much hate for boosting to 90"

I'm surprised you had the arm-strength left to type all that considering you had to swim through the molasses lake of other threads with the same subject and similar titles.

Soothing Mist:"Healing them for a minor amount every 0.5 sec, until you take any other action."Jade Serpent Statue: "The statue will also begin casting Soothing Mist on your target. healing for 50% as much as yours. " [What's half of minor?]
"Statue casts Soothing Mist at a nearby ally for toddler healing."

I don't think the hate is against ALL boosted players, just those that don't know their ass from their elbow and didn't have the courtesy to at least learn the basics of the class they chose to boost. They saved themselves a week of levelling, but couldn't invest less an hour reading up on Icy Veins or the guides on this forum?

I feel like people hide behind "leave him alone he's new", that works at level 1-89, but level 90 players are expected to have a clue or things like LFR and random BG's just don't work.

I'm not expecting players to min-max, but for instance there was a Destro Lock spamming Incinerate, and only Incinerate, this kind of thing is inexcusable.